Did WLS Play A Major Role In Fatal Accident?
December 3, 2012Did WLS Play A Major Role In Fatal Accident?
by Tammy J. Colter, OH Magazine, Editor-In-Chief
It was a warm summer day in July 2011 when James Heaney, a retired Plainfield, N.J. police officer, set out for what was to be a nice, leisurely day of fishing with a friend. Some time later that same day, he made the fateful decision to stop by the Sarah Street Grill and then the Jacksonian Club where it is thought that he consumed approximately 24 ounces of beer and about 2 ounces of vodka at the establishments. Feeling just fine to drive, Heaney jumped in to his Dodge Ram pickup truck and hopped on to Route 512 and on the way home he went.
At that same time, Keith Michaelson and a group of seven members of the Last Chance Motorcycle Club were headed in the opposite direction to a fellow member's viewing in Monroe County. The riders were a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who supported each other through sobriety and had ridden countless hours together. It was a somber day, but their friendships would carry them through the loss of their friend who had died of cancer.
And then it happened. In the blink of an eye, two lives were lost and several other lives were forever changed. Heaney had drifted over in to oncoming traffic and hit the motorcyclists as they came around the bend. Going almost 20 miles over the speed limit, Heaney hit the Last Chance riders with such a force that one of the motorcycles went up in flames, another slid through the flames, and the motorcycles went down like bowling pins. Michalelson and Michael Zadoyko were pronounced dead at the scene and four other riders were badly injured. The only rider not injured, George Courtis, suffered from other wounds. His wounds would later prove to be mental as the images of what he witnessed that horrific day would come to haunt him.
At the scene of the accident, police officers smelled alcohol on Heaney and asked him if he had been drinking. He claimed to be just fine while stating that the motorcyclists were riding in his lane and trying to pass him. He wasn't "just fine" and the motorcyclists were not in his lane. With 0.08 being the legal limit, Heaney blew a 0.11 blood-alcohol content and failed field sobriety tests. He was taken in to custody.
Now, over a year later, Heaney is set to go on trial for drunken vehicular homicide and faces a total of 28 charges. And let the games begin because Heaney and his lawyer, Dennis Charles, are arguing that Heaney's 2008 weight loss surgery (WLS) was a contributing factor as to the cause of the accident. The District Attorney, Bill Blake, agrees. But the lawyers on both sides don't agree as to how gastric bypass affected Heaney that fateful afternoon.
Heaney's lawyer claims that he blacked out just before the crash because of hypoglycemia, a condition which causes a drop in blood sugar and known to sometimes develop in WLS post-ops. The district attorney argues that Heaney had a lower tolerance to alcohol due to his weight loss surgery and therefore, he was even more so in no condition to drive. The 50-year-olds attorney is fighting to suppress testimony by bariatric surgeon Mitchell S. Roslin who says that although Heaney may not have looked drunk to bartenders and waitresses, the effects of alcohol could still be felt due to his WLS.
Heaney's trial is scheduled to begin May 7, 2013.
What do you think? Was Heaney's weight loss surgery a contributing factor to the fatal accident? Should it be a consideration in the trial? Or is this a case where one man simply drank way too much and made the bad decision to drive?
-Photo courtesy of Jeff_Golden